Tenth Muse Ensemble, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Kaisa Roose – From Sappho’s Lyre (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:16:03 minutes | 2,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
The double-album project is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Greek Canadian composer Constantine Caravassilis (Toronto) and American classicist, author, and poet Jeffrey Duban (New York City).
The project’s focus is the poetry of and inspired by the ancient Greek poetess Sappho of Lesbos (7th and 6th centuries BC), in the words of famed British poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), “simply nothing less—as she is certainly nothing more—than the greatest poet who ever was at all.”
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Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir & Tõnu Kaljuste – Veljo Tormis: Reminiscentiae (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:23 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series
The elemental power of ancient folk music is the lifeforce that drives the compositions of Veljo Tormis (1930-2017). As the great Estonian composer famously said, “I do not use folk song. It is folk song that uses me.” This sentiment is echoed in definitive performances by the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, for decades one of Tormis’s closest musical associates. Four orchestral cycles celebrate the changing seasons: Autumn Landscapes, Winter Patterns, Spring Sketches, Summer Motifs. And three pieces – Worry Breaks The Spirit, Hamlet’s Songs and Herding Calls – feature new arrangements by Tõnu Kaljuste, continuing and commemorating Tormis’s work. The album opens with The Tower Bell In My Village which Kaljuste commissioned 45 years ago. It sets words by Fernando Pessoa that seem entirely pertinent in the context of this tribute. “Oh death, it’s a bend in the road/You can’t be seen when you’ve passed by/But still your steps continue…” Reminiscentiae was recorded at Tallinn’s Methodist Church in October and November 2020.
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Marko Ylönen, Lilli Maijala, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Juha Kangas – Pēteris Vasks: Cello Concerto No. 2 “Klātbūtne” & Viola Concerto (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:11 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Alba
This album includes two string concertos by Latvian-born composer Pēteris Vasks, the first of which is Concerto No. 2 “Klātbūtne” for cello and string orchestra – a three-part concerto for cello and string orchestra. Marko Ylönen will perform as a cello soloist on the recording. The second work on the album is the four-part Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra that features viola player Lilli Maijala as soloist. The orchestra is conducted by Juha Kangas.
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Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Risto Joost – Tõnu Kõrvits: The Sound of Wings (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:30 minutes | 906 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ondine
Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits (b. 1969) belongs to his country’s most prominent composers. His works are rich with delicate atmosphere possessing a particularly Northern feel combined with a romantic and Impressionistic touch. This new album by the award-winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and conductor Risto Joost is the final volume in a trilogy of works for choir and orchestra.
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Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – Gesualdo (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:30 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series
This absorbing project finds Australian composer Brett Dean and Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür drawing inspiration in very different ways from the music, life and times of Carlo Gesualdo and juxtaposes these reflections with Gesualdo’s own music.
The music of Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (1566-1613) has exerted a powerful influence on composers down the ages. His highly-charged, mannerist, idiosyncratic vocal music constitutes “a gallery of dramatically-lit portraits of human emotions with a heavy emphasis on the extremes of joy and despair” (to quote former Hilliard Ensemble singer Gordon Jones).
Brett Dean’s „Carlo“ (composed 1997) begins with pure Gesualdo from the 6th Book of Madrigals, then gradually enters a very 20th century sound-world. Through use of both sampled and real-time voices as well as increasingly intense strings Dean paints an hallucinatory picture of the Prince of Verona’s state of mind as he is driven toward his violent crimes of passion (he murdered his wife and her lover when he caught them in flagrante delicto) .
Erkki Sven Tüür’s „L’Ombra di Gesualdo“ references the Gesualdo motet ‘O crux benedicta’ from the Cantiones sacrae, and Gesualdo’s piece is also heard in an arrangement for strings by Tüür. The programme is completed by Tüür’s ‘Psalmody’, which is without a Gesualdo-inspired subtext but it too cross-references older and newer music, within the narrower time-frame of Tüür’s own oeuvre.
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